'Give you a fright. Yes. I'm sorry. We should have telephoned.'

'I agree,' says Elizabeth, rousing herself. 'We should have telephoned. That is what we should have done. That was our mistake.'

Silence. Is that the conclusion of the bout? Plainly he has lost; but has he lost honourably, honourably enough to get a rematch, or has he lost abjectly?

'You want taxi?' says Marijana. 'You want to call taxi?'

He and the Costello woman exchange looks. 'Yes,' says Elizabeth Costello. 'Unless Paul here has something more to say.'

'Paul here has nothing more to say,' he says. 'Paul came in the hope of getting his property back, but as of now Paul gives up.'

Marijana rises, gives an imperious wave. 'Come!' she says. 'You want to see what kind of thief is Drago, I show you.'

He tries to get up from the sofa. Though she can see what an effort it costs him, she makes no move to help. He casts a glance at Elizabeth Costello. 'Go on,' says Elizabeth Costello. 'I'll stay here and catch my breath before the next act begins.'

He struggles erect. Marijana is already halfway up the stairs. One step at a time, gripping the banisters, he follows.

PRIVATE, says the glaring sign on the door. THIS MEANS YOU. 'Drago's room,' says Marijana, and throws open the door.

The room is functionally furnished in blond pine: bed, desk, bookcase, computer workstation. It could not be more clean and orderly.

'Very nice,' he says. 'Very neat. I'm surprised. Drago was never so neat when he stayed with me.'

Marijana shrugs. 'I say to him, Mr Rayment let you make mess so you will like him, but here you don't make mess, is not necessary, is your home here. I also say to him, you want to go to navy, you want to live in submarine, you learn to be neat.'

'True. If you want to live in a submarine you had better be neat. Is that what Drago wants to do: live in a submarine?'

Marijana shrugs again. 'Who knows. Is young. Is just a kid.'

His own opinion regarding Drago, an opinion he does not voice, is that if he keeps his room shipshape, that is probably because his mother is always breathing over his shoulder. Quite intimidating, Marijana Jokic, when she wants to be. Quite a presence to bear with you into the future.

Pinned to the wall over Drago's bed are three photographs blown up to poster size. Two are Faucherys: the group of miners; and the women and children in the doorway of the wattle hut. The third, in colour, shows eight lithe male bodies caught in midair as they dive into a swimming pool.

'So,' says Marijana. With hands on hips she waits for him to speak.

He steps closer and examines the second photograph. Mounted on the body of the little girl with the muddy hands is the face of Ljuba, her dark eyes boring into him. The fit is less than perfect: the orientation of the head does not quite match the hang of the shoulders.

'Just playing,' says Marijana. 'Is not serious thing. Is just – how you say it? – slips.'

'Shapes. Images.'

'Is just images. Play with images on computer, what is thief in that? Is modern thing. Images, who they belong to? You want to say, I point camera at you' – she stabs a finger at his chest – 'I am thief, I steal your image? No: images is free – your image, my image. Is not secret what Drago is doing. These photographs-' she waves towards the three photographs on the wall – 'all on his website. Anyone can see. You want to see website?'

She gestures towards the computer, which is humming softly.

'Please not,' he says. 'I don't understand computers. Drago can make all the copies he likes, I couldn't care less. I just want the originals back. The original prints. The ones touched by Fauchery's hand.'

'Originals.' All of a sudden she smiles, and not without kindliness, as if it has dawned on her that if he does not understand computers or the concept of the original or anything else, it is not out of wilfulness but because he is a fool. 'OK. When Drago come home I ask him about originals.' She pauses. 'Elizabeth,' she says – 'she come live with you now?'

'No, we have no such plan.'

She is still smiling. 'But is good idea maybe. Then you not alone when it comes, you know, emergency.'

Again she pauses, and in that pause he senses that her purpose in bringing him upstairs may not just have been to show him Drago's pictures.

'You a good man, Mr Rayment.'

'Paul.'

'You a good man, Paul. But you get too lonely in your flat – you know what I mean? I get lonely too, in Coober Pedy, before we come to Adelaide, so I know, I know. Sit at home all day, kids at school, just baby and me – Ljuba was baby then – you get, you know, negative. So maybe you get negative too in your flat. No children, nobody. Very…'

'Very gloomy?'

She shakes her head. 'No, I don't know how you say it. You grab. Anything come, you grab.' With one hand she shows him how one grabs.

'Clutch at straws,' he suggests. It is the first intimation she has given that the makeshift English she employs is not enough for her. If only he could speak Croatian! In Croatian, perhaps, he would be able to sing from the heart. Is it too late to learn? Can he find a teacher here in Adelaide? Lesson one: the verb to love, ljub or whatever.

'Anyway,' she says, ' Elizabeth come live with you, then you forget Marijana. Forget godfather too. Is no-good idea, godfather, is not realistic like. Because where he lives, this godfather? You want godfather come live in Narrapinga Close? Is not realistic – you see?'

'I never asked to come and live with you.'

'You come live here, where you sleep? You sleep in Drago's bed, where is Drago sleeping? Or you want to sleep with me and Mel, two man, one woman?' She is bubbling over with laughter now. 'You want that?'

He cannot laugh. His throat is dry. 'I could live in your back yard,' he whispers. 'I could have a shed put up. I could live in a shed in your back yard and watch over you. Over all of you.'

'OK,' she says briskly, 'is enough talking. Elizabeth come live with you, she fix up everything, no more gloomy.'

'Gloom.'

'No more gloom. Is funny word. In Croatia we say ovaj glumi, doesn't mean he is gloomy, no, means he is pretending, he is not real. But you not pretending, eh?'

'No.'

'Yeah, I know that.' And, to his surprise, perhaps to her own surprise too, she rises on tiptoe and gives him a kiss, two kisses, one on each cheek. 'Come, we go down now.'

ELIZABETH COSTELLO IS not by herself. Standing over her is a strange figure: a man in baggy white overalls, his head hidden under what looks like a canvas bucket. The man seems to be speaking, but his words are irretrievably muffled by the mask.

Swiftly Marijana crosses the floor. 'Zaboga, zar opet!' she exclaims, laughing. 'His hair is catched! Every time he put it on' – she gestures towards the strange headgear – 'his hair catch, then I must…' She makes twisting motions with her fingers.

She grasps the man by the shoulders – it is Miroslav – turns him around, and begins to disengage the mask from his long hair. Miroslav stretches backward with his hands, groping for her hips. She sways out of the way, frees the mask. He lifts it up: his face is ruddy from the heat; he seems to be in a good humour.

'It's the bees,' he explains. 'I've been moving hives.'

'My husband is beekeeper,' says Marijana. 'You meet my husband? Is Mrs Costello, she is friend to Mr Rayment. Mel.'

'How do you do, Mel,' says Elizabeth Costello. 'Elizabeth. I have heard about you but we have never met in the flesh, so to speak. You keep bees?'

'It's just a hobby like,' says Mel or Miroslav.

'My husband, his family always keeping bees,' says Marijana. 'His father, and before him his greatfather. So he is keeping bees too, here in Australia.'